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Topic: EE Exclusive Astromech 5-Packs (Read 13139 times)

These seem to be more than the Clone sets, or am I wrong? Maybe not. Maybe it's just that astromechs in general seem like so much "less" figure. I mean, they don't come with anything even.

I'm reluctantly going to go in on one set in a case, IF I find a case to get in on with my local buds... If not, I'm potentially going to pass I think...

As much as it pains me (I'd like them a lot), this set somehow feels like even more of a butt-**** than the Clone sets were. I still don't have an Episode 2 Clone Army because of those things... A mere handful an army does not make. Price kept me from picking those up as much as I wanted, and I'm really gonna have to ponder what to do on these astromechs.

Somehow I'm not suprised. If you go in with 4 other people it comes down to about $6 each plus shipping, and $60 for both sets; which isn't too bad considering basic figures are $5.88 around me. Still overpriced since these won't be coming with any accessories.

Why the **** does Hasblow do this? they lose so many customers, those sets should have cost $25, $30 tops.

I'm sure someone will eventually chime in and state that EE has to make their money on selling the item and while that is true, that in my eyes does not justify the price, here's a few reasons why.

1.) Average retail price of one carded figure over the life of the line has been $5, so I'll be using that as a basis. Note that currently the average price is around $6, but prices do tend to fluctuate during a movie year.

2.) The overall costs (R&D, production, packaging, shipping, etc) to Hasbro of the figure tend to be more about $4. Commonly the packaging of a figure costs $1 or so (someone please correct me if I'm wrong). That means the figure itself only has a value of $3. I'll get back to packaging in a moment

3.) The expenses in creating new figures in this case are wiped out as previously existing molds are being used, thus no new toolings will be needed and production can start immediately. If a quarter of a figure's value is from the R&D process, then a figure has a value of $2.25

4.) While never before seen paint ops are being applied to these droids, all are similar to previously seen paint ops and as such have a negligible cost increase to the production of an individual figure and thus the value of it.

5.) Assuming these will be coming in a box similar to the Clonetroopers 4-pack, there is a cost in the design and construction of the box. We'll say that those costs are 3 times as much as those for a card, thus equating the box value to $3

What we see then is that for a boxed set of 5 astromechs, the cost of the set from Hasbro's pov should be ($2.25 x 5) + $3 = $14.25.

Now marking that up for a retail sale per unit for Hasbro, would be ($4 x 5) + $3 = $23.00.

Commonly, retailers will try to get a 25% markup to make profit, so the average cost for sale should be ($23 x 0.25) + $23 = $28.75.

This final value still exceeds the purchase of 5 carded figures at the average retail price, but is a respectable value since EE needs to make profit.

Now I know my numbers are probably off, but I'm willing to bet they're in the general ballpark (again if someone with more concrete information can chime in that would be great) as such I have to ask where is the other $11.24 coming from? Is Hasbro charging EE a fortune when selling these items to them or is there a huge markup going on? Or is it more down the middle?

Please keep in mind that I am trying to determine a logical analysis to how this price was established. It may help myself as well as others decide, if it's worth purchasing the sets or not.

I'll be the first to step up and say that the price doesn't bother me. These are so obscure, that we're lucky to get them. I thought that the EE clone sets were overpriced because they were an item that could have done very, very well on cards, but Hasbro never offered them. It was almost like Hasbro knew how much we wanted colored SA clones, and held back from releasing them on regular stores.

I really like these sets, and would like to get them...but with the price I'm not sure I'll be able to. I guess it depends how much Christmas spending ends up being this year, and what else is out at the time. Its frustrating, because they look like neat sets...but $40 for these seems a little high. We'll see...they do look neat though.

I'm completely with Corran on this one. There is absolutely no reason for these packs to be as expensive as they are, and it reeks of gouging. EE has always priced things a bit higher than they should, and this is getting into the ludicrous range to say the least. These figures required no new tooling, not much R&D outside of finding out the paint schemes themselves, and this doesn't even include the statement that Pawlus made about Hasbro not wanting to put an R5 in the sets because they would have to make a new mold.

Obviously they wanted to put forth the smallest amount of effort for the highest possible return. With EE and their already exhorbitant prices, they've found their perfect retail partner so they can gouge, gouge, gouge away.

Adam Pawlus should be ashamed of himself for even promoting this set as something that "everyone" is going to "love"

$40 for FIVE repaints with absolutely NO accessories and NO new sculpting.

At most these sets should cost $30 if you buy ONE and then go down from there if you purchase them by the case.

Sure I'm bitching and I'll eventually put in my order, but I won't be doing for these what I did for the clones, which was buy an entire case - that's another ridiculous thing - a case of these is 5 sets of two?!?!?!!? Four sure, 'cause then I could buddy up with someone like Matt who might want two of each set, but FIVE?

I'm more inclined to just take it up the ass and get two of the two-packs for $74.99 each. At least then you get a $2.50 on each set of five.

I wish Hasbro would put an end to this ****. This is price gouging at its best and eventually it's going to drive even the most die-hard of collectors away from the line.

Compared to the way things were in 1995, there are so many OTHER collectible items competing for our Star Wars dollars, you would think Hasbro would be doing this to make sure the collectors stay, not things that make the collectors want to jump ship and move to collecting something else.

Look at it this way. If you're like me and you get two of everything, these two sets will cost $150 plus shipping. Why not take that same money and buy the first three SideShow Toys 12" figures which are supposed to be at most $50 each. Sure, I'm going to do both, 'cause I'm nuts. But if I was in a cash crunch, I'd pick the 12" figures from Sideshow Toys.

Logged

Peter

Letting my collecting OCD get the better of me on a DAILY basis... and loving EVERY minute of it!

When you order that way, each box of droids will run about $34 (with UPS shipping) or $6.80 per figure. When I ordered the Clones by the case, each box ended up at $28 (with UPS shipping)or $7.00 per figure. In other words, they are pretty dang close in price.

So, if you've got local guys or even trading pals, you can save quiet a bit of cash. For example, if you order a set (1x each box form EE) it would run you about $85 (shipped the slowest). If you order by the case, it works out to closer to $68 (with faster UPS shippping).

That's a savings of at least $17, so even if you have to pay another $5-6 for re-shipping to split a case, you are still saving money!

No disrespect intended here at all, but if he's got half a brain, he's probably getting a master case for free as part of the deal. My guess is he's bright enough to latch onto some of the prototypes as well. I wouldn't be so bold as to suggest I could come up with anything cool of this sort, I'm not nearly so obsessed, but if I were at that point, I'd be looking for free figures, prototypes and money on top of it all.

Without getting into mudslinging, I'm just going to report the facts:1. He works for Entertainment Earth

I have read Adam's Q&A for years. I always enjoy reading it for his info and his humor. When I found out that he was working for EE, I no longer look forward to reading it. Why? 'Cause now you have to wonder, is he hyping certain things in the line or certain exclusives (like this droid trainwreck) out of a love of SW figures or now because he works for EE? It would be like a movie critic making his own movie (yeah right) and then writing a review of his own movie.

Again, if he was an evangelist of the collecting community and had gotten Hasbro to make this set independent of a specific on-line shop, then I would be giving him HUGE props for doing so. As it stands, really all he did was suggest to Aaron and/or Jason Labowitz that they should do something like this, Aaron and/or Jason probably asked him to pick the droids and then EE went to Hasbro building on the relationship EE and Hasbro have had over the past many years. Adam saying he had a major role in this is like a NJ house-frau who gets designers and contractors to completely renovate her home with her husband paying the bill and then brags to her friends that "she rennovated the house" - in reality all he did was pick out paint schemes.

3. He gets paid regardless of what EE charges for them4. He probably gets a discount on these figures as a result5. He couldn't care less how much they cost as a result

Again, this is a big sticking point with me. I'm almost starting to wonder if his "swami" was one of the guys over at EE who get to see what's in the pipeline six-to-twelve months in advance. Of course he could give a rats ass about how much these cost 'cause he would be a complete RETARD not to work into his contract as a "benefit" that he gets one of each case that comes down the pike. If you look at the "About Us" page on the EE site, this is EXACTLY why Aaron and Jason founded the company, and I quote:

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We admit to being selfish when we started this business. We wanted to find a simple way to buy all of the new action figures and toys at reasonable prices without wasting our time. Our solution was right in front of us, similar to the big-box warehouse store model, we decided to sell full cases of action figures. Thankfully, we were not the only collectors who felt this was a good solution.

So there you have it, obviously one or both of the brothers at the helm take the cases that come in for themselves, so again, Adam would be retarded not to ask for the same treatment.

So I'm willing to bet that he gets the stuff for free, not at a discount or at cost, but FREE. Does he still talk about what he can find in his local stores? He used to mention that kind of thing in his Q&A all the time (i.e. what he found in the local Scottsdale, AZ Target, etc...) - if he stops or rarely mentions what he's seeing in stores in his answers that means that he is definitely getting open-stock items from EE for free and the only reason he hits a brick-n-mortar store is to pick up that chain's exclusive item.

6. If someone complains about the price, he'll make a snide remark toward them and say that people are overreacting.

He will.

You know what? What they should have done is follow-up their AOTC clone box sets with ROTS clone box sets for Utapau, Shocktrooper, 501st, Kasshyyk Green and Coruscant Gray/Blue Detailing variations. Just have all four figures be identical and all four of them based on SA Clone #41.

That is something I would pay for. I would also pay for clone commanders or concepts based on the Art of Revenge of the Sith. There's a seller on eBay who's been doing that pretty steady for the last two months and his figures NEVER sell for less than $125 - sometimes they even come close to $300. Here's an example of his work: Custom Commander Appo

If Hasbro could make a Commander Gree by just applying a new paint-op to SA Clone #41, they could do the same with Appo.

Before anyone slams me for the post, please realize that:

a) I know that it seems that I'm jealous of Adam, but I'm not, I just don't like the idea of him using GH as a forum to help him promote EE exclusives - especially overpriced ones.

b) I know that I am a completist by choice and no one forces me to buy two of every item, but at this point, with 10 years and who knows how much $$$ invested, two Astromech 5-packs aren't enough to make me stop collecting.

c) These pieces shouldn't be any more expensive than a BattlePack - $21 - $26.

It's times like this when I'm glad that I pre-order stuff from EE and then cancel it on their ass when I find it in the store first.

Logged

Peter

Letting my collecting OCD get the better of me on a DAILY basis... and loving EVERY minute of it!

No disrespect intended here at all, but if he's got half a brain, he's probably getting a master case for free as part of the deal. My guess is he's bright enough to latch onto some of the prototypes as well. I wouldn't be so bold as to suggest I could come up with anything cool of this sort, I'm not nearly so obsessed, but if I were at that point, I'd be looking for free figures, prototypes and money on top of it all.

No disrespect detected, Brent (if you were addressing that part to me). I don't hold any ill will toward Pawlus or anyone for that matter who is able to get an "employee discount" on anything, since such a thing is usually one of the perks of working there. I was just listing what I know and what I assume as a way of interpreting Pete's comment about him saying how everyone would "love" the exclusive and how his intentions might not be so much influenced by the product as his connection(s) to said product.

As for Pawlus himself, I will not engage in any mudslinging. All I will say is that he is walking a fine line between honest writing and commercial (as in advertisement) writing these days with his connection to EE and GH. At the point where he is no longer able to remain objective about things, he should consider if he is still writing his Q&A for the right or wrong reasons.

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Does he still talk about what he can find in his local stores?

I haven't seen that come up in recent Q&As really, but I know that our own JediMAC has met him (Pawlus recently moved to California to work for EE apparently) in a Target recently, so who knows.